Happy New Year 2020!

Happy New Year! I See Good Things Ahead!

I hope everyone had a great Holiday and New Year’s Eve celebration. I know I did. Being able to come home, and see family was exactly what I needed to do. It gave me the chance to slow down and think about how I can work on myself.

I realized that, although 2019 gave me the opportunity to become much more productive in my job, it also pushed me in the other direction – full-on productivity without any slowing down. There were also times when I had so much on my plate that I couldn’t slow down – not because I didn’t have the ability. I did. I just couldn’t slow down because there was that much work to be done.

What I See In My Future

The issue of not being able to slow down got me thinking. Sure, I want to be productive and – yes – I want to help people. However, there was one person I realized that I wasn’t helping at all – me. I also realized I do this to myself a lot!

Sure, being able to help others is great. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. It’s definitely important to be there for others. However, you also need to be there for yourself.

On that note, I recently learned of the passing of one of my mentors. Eileen Appleby was a social work professor at Marist College, where I earned my Bachelor’s Degree. However, she was also a mentor. She helped me realize that in order to help others, you must first help yourself. In a field like social work, that is so true. If you are not 100%, how can you possibly help others grow to their fullest potential?

Resolutions for 2020

It is for that reason that I decided that 2020 will be my year to focus on myself. Make no mistake – I’ll certainly be there for others. But, I have to make myself more of a priority than I did last year. My physical and mental health paid the price for not doing so. Thus, I thought about how I want to do this and came up with four different resolutions:

Continue to stay informed through newspapers and periodicals. Of course, with this being an election year, there will be plenty of political news. However, there are certainly other stories and events that are happening and will happen throughout the year. I want to learn about what else is going on outside of my job.

Get more active on my website. I did much better in 2019 than in 2018. Proof of that can be seen by the number of stories I wrote in that timeframe, which you can see here. However, I still want to write more stories. I also want to explore new territory and write about different topics.

Focus more on my physical and mental health. I definitely slacked off last year, and paid multiple prices for it, which included getting an upper-respiratory infection at the end of the year. It was my first and hopefully my last. I plan to eat better using the DASH Diet (which worked for me previously), and going to a local gym – hopefully a national one that has locations in Florida and South Carolina.

Keep my life simple. Sure, I can’t control what happens at work. However, I can allow myself the time to de-stress and keep my personal life simple. This is something that I stopped doing many times in 2019. As the saying goes, I “took my work home with me.” While I am grateful to have had my hours increase at my job, it came at a personal price. Along with being a communications specialist, I added social work duties, which – I must admit – stresses me out (Sorry, Professor Appleby). As I said at the beginning of this post, I like helping people. But, I need to be able to “turn off” and focus on me from time to time – and that time needs to increase.

I See Potential

So, there you have it. This is my plan to improve myself for 2020. Sure, I can make a lot of vision jokes. However, I do see a lot of potentials to improve myself – and I don’t want to give those up for the sake of others. While it’s important to be there for others, I need to remember that it’s O.K. to be selfish once in a while and make myself a priority.

2 thoughts on “Happy New Year 2020!”

soooo true…every last descriptive word of life being a helper. we need balance always and I’m proud of you for recognizing that and making a decision to put yourself on that list of priorities…you’re amazing Jay!! may this be your best year yet of a balance of self-care and caring for others.!!! xoxo

Sorry, Kristen, for not seeing this sooner. We definitely need more balance – especially myself. Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate them. May 2020 bring you health, balance, self-care and caring for others, as well! xoxo